


Matters of Grief

by DaftPunk_DeLorean



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: And Bruce gives it to him, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Science Boyfriends, Science Bros, Tony Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 03:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13425930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaftPunk_DeLorean/pseuds/DaftPunk_DeLorean
Summary: After Ultron, Tony doesn't allow himself to grieve all the things he lost. Bruce helps him take that first step.Set post-Age of Ultron, after which Bruce remained on Earth with Tony.





	Matters of Grief

Tony slumped back in his chair, rubbing at his eyes with one hand. He heaved a heavy sigh, twisting a bit as he did so that his back would pop. Tension bunched in his neck like boulders, and he tossed the AI program chips on his worktable in defeat. Bruce looked up from across the room, where he was tending to a small array of houseplants that had overflown into Tony’s workshop, despite Tony’s affectionate grumbling. 

“What’s up? You look tighter than a drum,” Bruce said, setting down the watering can and walking over to Tony, who leaned into his side.

“I’m never going to be able to reproduce him,” Tony said quietly, sorrowfully, picking up the chips labelled JOCASTA and TADASHI, for a moment, before tossing them back down. 

“Tony… are you sure you should even try?” Bruce said carefully. “He was an evolved consciousness. It would take twenty years for him to become what he was, and that’s if you could even replicate the base code and parameters of his adaptive programming and environmental conditioning.”

Tony didn’t snap at Bruce that he already knew this; he didn’t get grumpy or terse or frustrated, he just simply… sighed.

“Friday is good, but she’s no Jarvis,” Tony said, then paused. “No offense, Friday.”

“None taken, Boss.”

“Good then.” Tony gazed down at his lap, taking Bruce’s hand and lacing their fingers together. “I miss him so much, Bruce. I don’t want to sound like I have a god complex, but he was like my son. My father. My friend. It’s like… he died. He’s gone. Vision is someone completely different. He isn’t Jarvis.”

“I think Vision would say that ‘he is not without feelings of fondness for you, in a manner of speaking,’” Bruce said in Vision’s dry, British tone, eliciting a huff of a laugh from Tony. 

“You do a good impression of him.”

Bruce shrugged, giving Tony a Mona Lisa smile.

“I have my talents.”

“Mm, I can think of a few…”

Bruce nudged Tony’s shoulder with his hip.

“Don’t be a rube. Come upstairs with me. You’ve been working yourself ragged over this.”

Tony shook his head, hunching once more over the chips.

“No. I feel like I’m close. I’m just missing something. It’s on the tip of my tongue, I just need to-“

Bruce knelt beside Tony and turned his face to him, and Tony met his eyes. Bruce’s brow was pinched with worry.

“You need to mourn. Jarvis, Ultron, what happened in Sokovia, Pietro… Tony, honey, you need to mourn. It’s not weak to grieve. You can’t fix your grief. You can only feel it.”

Tony felt the muscles in his back ripple with a wave of unwelcome tension, and dropped his eyes. 

“I’ve had time, it’s not like I’m a weepy mess, moping around-“

“That’s the problem. You’re not a weeping mess, and you should be. You saw how I reacted after I found out about- well, you saw how I reacted,” Bruce said, and Tony nodded, knowing full well the fathomless guilt Bruce carried from Hulk’s rampage after Wanda’s intrusion into his mind. How Bruce still stiffened and often slipped away when she entered the room, still unable to even be around her for what she did. Bruce certainly grieved; quiet and unsettling at first, then thunderous and terrifying, but only when he thought he was alone.

“I thought you weren’t _that_ kind of doctor,” Tony said wryly, avoiding his emotions.

“Stop skirting the issue.”

Tony sighed again, leaning forward to rest his forehead on Bruce’s shoulder, letting Bruce’s warm embrace envelop him. He hadn’t cried even once. Not a single tear. Instead, he busied himself furiously with a variety of projects, until his breath was steady and his fingers no longer trembled. Trying to replicate Jarvis was simply another distraction.

“Tony,” Bruce whispered, cupping the nape of Tony’s neck. “Nothing that happened was your fault. We had no way of knowing how things would unfold. You can’t take the blame.”

Oh, that was unfair. Tony clutched at Bruce’s sweater with his fingers, trying not to twist the fabric too much. Guilt of blame was Tony’s constant burden. The whole world blamed him. His own team (well, some of them, if he could even call them a team anymore) blamed him. He blamed himself more than anyone. 

“That’s not true,” he whispered. “I created everything that destroyed Sokovia, I-“

“No. You created something good, because you wanted to keep people safe. Ultron corrupted that. He twisted it into something evil.”

Tony sniffed. He definitely wasn’t getting emotional. How could he not be responsible? Ultron was borne of Tony’s own hubris. The destruction, all the lives lost, it all weighed upon Tony’s shoulders. How could he see differently, when he knew every name and saw every face of every one of Ultron’s victims? Tony couldn’t understand Bruce’s words. Ultron didn’t _become_ evil. He was _created_ evil because that’s how Tony made him; he was evil because that’s what Tony was. Everything Tony built was for destruction, even Iron Man.

The guilt suffocated him.

“Why do you have to be so goddamned good to me?” Tony whispered thickly, sucking in a shuddering gasp of air. 

“Because I love you.”

“I don’t deserve it.”

“You deserve it more than anyone in the world.”

Tony sniffed again, and Bruce held him tighter. He couldn’t be okay with all this yet. Maybe someday, but right now, he could hardly dip his toe into the ocean of emotions he felt about the things that had happened. It was too overwhelming.

“This- whatever this is- isn’t going to fix this, Bruce. Not today,” Tony whispered. 

“I know, but maybe it’s a start. I’m not okay either. We can be not okay together,” Bruce said with a cautiously hopeful tone, pulling back to look at Tony’s face, before pulling him close and kissing a tear off Tony’s cheek.

Tony gazed at him, wet and red-eyed, and wiped his face with his sleeve. Bruce was beautiful and radiated love, and Tony had his breath taken away at least once a day by the powerful feeling of being loved so fiercely and the harrowing knowledge of being completely unworthy.

“I don’t deserve you,” he said, ever in awe that someone like Bruce saw something in him worth loving. Bruce just shook his head and huffed a laugh.

“And here I was going to say the same thing about me.” He stood, tugging Tony’s hand until Tony stood with a groan.

“Come on, Tone. You don’t have to crumble right now if you don’t want to. But you do need to leave this AI business alone and focus on something else for awhile. Let’s go upstairs, okay?” Bruce said, encouraging. Tony pressed close to his side.

“Stay with me? We can… we can have ice cream,” Tony said softly, and Bruce squeezed his hand.

“I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me, honey.”

“Good,” Tony murmured, leaning into Bruce’s shoulder.

“Good,” Bruce whispered, pressing a soft kiss to Tony’s temple, and led them to the kitchen in search of healing ice cream.


End file.
